Rainbow dress awesomeness

 Knitting more, and finished this off in a week!  Apparently I have the knitting bug quite badly...  *ahem*  Here are my fave shots, especially "stink eye" at the bottom.  :D

I totally made this!

I recently took up knitting (like some aged housewife...wait...hang on!), nah seriously, it's very therapuetic.  By recently I mean a couple of weekends ago.  I could already make a knit and purl stitch, but that's it (and that was ages ago).  Anyhoo, with some help from lovely friends, I totally made this dress.  Which is too small, but still adorable. 

I made the kid, too!

 Here's the gorgeousness that is my next project, also a dress!

And if any readers are so inclined, I'm Selenegonecrazy on Ravelry (what can I say, I got the bug bad!).

Lolly and her doings

Lolly is just growing up by leaps and bounds at the moment, she is chock-full of adorable, smarts, and adventure.  Here are some things she is loving.

Aunty J's guitar, now living at our house.

She is enjoying dance and music, and I've been scouting around for some lessons for her.  I'd love to build on the natural interest she is showing, and don't play anything other than piano!  Both girls are loving having the piano and guitar and drums out in the lounge as a music space for the family.

YouTubery.

Lolly is in love with some YouTube favourites, like The Duck Song, anything by Eric Herman, the Butterfly Ball, and the clip to Alanis Morissette's  'You Learn' - which she calls "the one where the woman goes out and has adventures."  She recently leaned how to use a mouse (she mostly uses the iPad/iPhone so hadn't needed to) and can use the touchpad reliably now, too.

DinnerDad also introduced her to the retro joys of Hong Kong Phooey.

Lolly lurvs her older brother, Smash, and loves doing stunts with him.  Here she is about 3 feet off the ground on a ledge after we'd been out to a restaurant.  Sometimes mothers have to look away!

Stunts!

She is mad keen on drawing lately, after quite a hiatus, and is doing complex drawings of people and animals, with stories attached. 

Lolly is in love with her friends, and wants to visit friends or have friends over to play all. the. time.  She has entered a very social period, and when we have company will disappear for hours at a time, often feeling confused when she sees me (she can yell at me to "go away"), which I'm guessing is conflict over loving her separation from me, but still loving me, too.  I try to be supportive, but confess it can be hurtful and I do get grumpy with it.  I do think that support shouldn't look like letting your kid be mean to you, though!

The love she has of play with her friends is so beautiful to watch.  She loves pretend games, making up games is a new thing, too, as well as favourites like jumping on the jumpoline, swimming, sand pit play, and doing "crashes" on the walking machine (which resulted in quite the foot scrape a couple of weeks ago!).

She is just developing a favourite toy, a dog we bought at Ikea recently, which has to come with us places and come to bed every night.  She has three favourites, and a carry case for them, too.  She is still enjoying containers, and I find collections ("lections") in odd containers all over the house.  Some become important to her, others never get revisited.  It's a skilled mother who can tell the difference and knows which ones NOT to clean up at the end of a long day!

Lolly is MAD KEEN on pretend play (still), and her favourite is to be a puppy (mostly called "Greeny" as that's her favourite colour.  She loves you to feed her, pat her, and wear a pretend collar and leash.  It's about as adorable as you might imagine.

Oh, and she's still wearing her blue band on her leg, after months!!  It's her "thing."

So, there's a picture of Lolly at three years and eight months!  I love you Lol, you're the wild and crazy-wonderful ride of my life!